


Drowning in Aversion

by infectedscrew



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Drowning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, emotional distress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 02:17:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6781375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infectedscrew/pseuds/infectedscrew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick wanted to give up but Tim wouldn’t let him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowning in Aversion

Drowning wasn’t going exactly the way he’d ever imagined it would. For one thing there was pressure everywhere. Everything pushed at him. Water, darkness, pain and fear snaked around his body, clamping tight and refusing to let go. And for another thing, he thought he would fight harder to stay alive. Didn’t people fight? Wasn’t there always a moment where they reached up toward that fading light? He wasn’t. He just watched as it slipped further and further away. The light racing his air supply, each one hoping to leave him faster.

He opened his mouth. Something told him that he was supposed to scream, make noise, do something. Instead he was distracted as a stream of nothing came out. Nothing but released air. Air he should have hold onto.

Irrationally he realized that the Gotham water was cleaner than he expected. It was far less polluted than people claimed it to be. Although his vision was fluctuating between hazy and overly clear. He wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at anymore.

Just as the edges of his vision blackened, threatening to take over, and the force was too much for his lungs, he felt something. Warmth that he couldn’t understand encircled his waist, holding tight.

He tried to make another noise but only succeeded in swallowing more water. Water his body didn’t need.

The warmth shifted, spreading over his shoulders. There was a strange pull and he felt himself moving up. Vaguely he fought. He didn’t know what was happening. All he knew was that the pressure he’d already started to accept was changing. His mind reeled and spun. He looked down, eyes wide in the dark depths.

‘Arms..? Who..?’

He was being pulled toward the surface. The light he should have been fighting for was getting closer. The race between light and air was changing, the rules were being rewritten. His heart leapt. Someone was fighting for him. Someone wanted him alive and to not fall into the bottom of Gotham’s bay. There was another human being who would very much prefer to keep his heart beating.

The water disappeared but the air didn’t instantly come back. Instead he was given a harsh tug as splintered wood and rock dragged over his spine. He couldn’t even find the need to fight. Let alone to breathe.

That warmth came back, covering his mouth and forcing something back into him. Life? He wondered cheekily if that actually happened, like in the movies. There came a harsh hit to his chest. Not once, nor twice but three separate times. His stomach convulsed, shoving all of the water he’d pulled in, up and out of his throat. Violent coughs racked his system.

Air, dense and cloying, filled his lungs; almost painfully bursting back into his body.

Someone brought him back.

Someone didn’t want Dick Grayson to die.

Dick groaned and tried to roll over. Instead his chest shrieked at him and he stayed on his back. He was forced to lift his arm to cover his eyes from the sunlight pouring into his room.

Everything hurt and he couldn’t quite remember why. He kept his eyes squeezed shut as he waited for the memories to flood back. There was a long dreadful silence on his mind’s part. Then he shifted and pain shot up his spine. He grit his teeth, stopping a second groan.

Last night had been one of the hardest in a long while.

Blockbuster decided it would be just super funny to pull children into his arm’s war. Recently he’d been recruiting from all over Bludhaven and Gotham. When Nightwing tried to put a stop to it, he was put through the ultimate test. Children, who were barely big enough to hold the guns they fired, chased him. While adults, who were supposed to protect children, beat him when he tried to stop running.

Even the smallest sigh hurt.

Carefully, slowly, he lowered his left arm. He didn’t even want to think about lifting the right.

“Oh? You’re awake?”

Dick’s thoughts halted. He knew that voice, but it’d been far too long. Not since he’d attempted to leave a message on an answering machine. He swallowed thickly. “Timmy?” His voice sounded graveled and harsh.

There was a shift to his right and Tim Drake came into his field of vision. The teenager looked much the same as before, if not a little older and more worn. His blue eyes were shadowed with a recent tragedy. Which Dick wasn’t so shocked by; it was the distinctive tilt to a permanent frown and just barely withheld emotion that bothered him.

Yet when Dick’s gaze met Tim’s, the frown loosened and the blue lightened to something human and familiar. “Yes, Dick. I’m here.”

Dick worked his jaw, attempting speech.

Tim shook his head. “Don’t try. Your vocal cords are still trying to heal.”

His expression must have been quizzical because Tim sighed. “You don’t remember much do you?” Dick didn’t need to shake his head for Tim to know. “Dick, you were strangled and thrown into the Gotham river.”

Dick’s eyes widened. He certainly didn’t remember that. He did remember taking a hit to the diaphragm, shoulder and hip. In fact, he recalled quite distinctly that he’d taken an iron bat to the hip. Strangling and near drowning on the other hand, he did not have in his memories.

“You don’t remember do you?”

Now Dick shook his head.

Tim’s shoulders slumped slightly.

Memory loss was never a good thing.

“Too be expected, I suppose,” Tim commented, more to himself than anything. “I’m going to check your wounds, okay?”

Dick watched as Tim leaned over him, those calculating eyes searching over him. It was only then that he realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. A tiny shiver rolled through him as Tim moved an almost nonexistent touch over bandages he wasn’t aware of.

The longer Tim touched the more Dick remembered. It was only when Tim pushed down on the center of his ribs that two very important things rushed to his mind. He gasped, hand clamping around Tim’s wrist. His hold was tight, crushing almost.

Tim barely even winced. “Does it still hurt?”

“You saved me.”

Tim blinked. “What?”

“You’re the one who pulled me from the water,” Dick stated. To anyone outside of this room, the acrobat sounded confused and almost shocked. To Tim, who’d known Dick longer than anyone, it was deep curiosity and interest.

A knot in Dick’s chest tightened and twisted. His thoughts chased each other as he tried to figure out just what had happened.

After a pause Tim nodded. “I was, yes.”

That meant that the warmth, the pull had been Tim.

That somebody had been the teenager leaning over him.

Tim Drake was the one who wanted Dick Grayson to continue living.


End file.
